Analysis & News

A friend in hospitality argued that I’d be better off in McDonald’s as they’d just won a pay-rise and it was due to the collective action taken by workers with the help and guidance of a union. I thought we at Boojum could take similar action and contacted the union. Since Unite and Boojum workers started our campaign, the number of active members has grown and we’re slowly gaining concessions. We used to feel powerless, but now we feel empowered

Journalist, trade unionist and LGBT+ rights campaigner Ali Feruz has been released from prison in Russia after a six-month campaign of solidarity. After helping to expose brutality against gay men in Chechnya, which was tolerated by the Russian government, Ali was arrested on bogus grounds and threatened with deportation to Uzbekistan, the country of his birth where he had already suffered horrific torture at the hands of the state for highlighting government corruption. Socialist Alternative in Russia and the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) – to which the Socialist Party is affiliated – helped organise international protests to demand Ali’s freedom. Finally, he has been released and he and his partner have been granted asylum in Germany.

The ongoing threat of outsourcing of work at Bombardier and the current redundancies, linked to outsourcing, are a huge challenge to the workforce. However, having led the battle to save jobs and skills, Bombardier workers have shown what they are capable of when united and mobilised and are now in a stronger position to deal with future threats, whether political or from the company.

After the horrific Parkland shooting that claimed the lives of 17 young people, high school students across the US are standing up to the arms industry and the politicians who do their bidding. Calls for gun reform, biting criticism of politicians in the pocket of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and planned school walkouts are proof that the new generation is sick of the torrent of mass shootings seen in recent years, and the blatant corruption of US politicians. Mass shootings like this are only the tip of the iceberg of America’s extremely high violent crime rates.

In just a couple of months, we could see a gargantuan victory for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy in the South with the Repeal referendum. The potential for discarding of the Eighth Amendment – which equates the existence of a foetus to the life of the women carrying it – and abortion being made available up to 12 weeks upon request is historic.